5
They’d said they’d arrive in less than a week, but that didn’t mean that week would end without any trouble.
Kanami, who’d wrapped a mantle around herself (although her midriff was still exposed), took the way that was a magnet for all sorts of headaches.
If Leonardo and the others had been able to use a map app to get a bird’s-eye view of the area they were walking through, it would have shown them the northern foothills of the vast mountain range known as Tian Mai. In Earth terms, they were the Tian Shan Mountains, the backbone of Eurasia.
Since they had seen these same mountains to the north while they were in Aorsoi and were now seeing them to the south, they must have cut across them at some point, but Leonardo didn’t remember doing it.
To be accurate, they’d spent over half a month prowling around the sort of mountainous region where dragon-type monsters appeared every two hours, so it wasn’t clear exactly when they’d crossed over to the north.
Hanging around central Eurasia—and the Tian Shan Mountains at that—from autumn to early winter was practically signing up to commit suicide, but Adventurer physical capabilities made that sort of recklessness possible, as did the sloppiness of the world of Theldesia.
Since they’d parted with the merchant Yagudo, their party now consisted of five Adventurers. Because there were no People of the Earth with them, they didn’t really understand what “normal” was. Even if they dug through the snow to make a spot to camp and spent the night there, they could get by with a simple Whoa, that was cold; my snot’s gonna freeze, and so there was no way for them to pick up common sense.
That said, here in the Tian Mai Mountains, they’d reached a People of the Earth Wolf-Fang hamlet and a Mountain Hare village, so he suspected that this whole world might be pretty good at the “survival” game.
Of course, it was also possible the real Tian Shan Mountains were a peaceful place that was bursting with life as well and that, as a New Yorker, he just didn’t know about it.
The world opened up with undulating mounds and troughs.
For a hilly area, the visibility was unbelievably good. Leonardo had lived in the canyons between buildings, and as far as he was concerned, it was terribly unsettling. A single hill-like rise went on for what was probably several kilometers, and others like it spread all through the plains at the foot of a seven-thousand-kilometer-class mountain range.
The scale was too big, and it made him feel as if his senses were going haywire. It seemed more like he’d shrunk than as if he was in an enormous mountain range. Wavy ground, like a messy picture drawn by a child—but it was impossibly gigantic. The land was preposterous.
According to Chun Lu, in summer, this area was absolutely beautiful. Radiant green sprang up all over the black earth and the rocks, and the wasteland became a grassy plain. The bushes that were here and there produced berries, and the thin trees grew thick foliage.
At the moment, it was a monochrome landscape: a wilderness of black dirt and gray rock with dead grass clinging to it, and the occasional white drift of residual snow. However, Leonardo thought, it was a place he’d like to visit during the summer.
And then Coppélia might start feeling romantic… Or maybe not…
Still, reality was heartless, and the party kept trudging across wide-open plateau country coated with lingering snow. There were about ten hours of daylight, and they spent nearly all of it traveling. Then, about every two hours, a dragon or wyvern or roc or flying spirit came along, and they fought it. Even Dorothy never went through trouble like this, Leonardo thought, as if grumbling to himself. Although the Oz he knew was the version in the musical.
In this region, there were no boulders taller than they were, no large thickets, no stands of trees—nothing they could use for cover.
The rolling wasteland went on for as far as they could see.
In a place like that, they couldn’t escape from flying monsters, so there was no way to avoid combat.
In the mythologies of all ages and places, dragons were depicted as powerful mystical beasts, and the world of Theldesia was no exception. Even within their various level demographics, dragons were monsters who were stronger than the rest, and that was true here in Tian Mai as well. They were Party-rank monsters with levels ranging from 86 to 90. If Leonardo and the others put their strength together, they weren’t unbeatable enemies, but they also weren’t opponents they could afford to get careless with. On the contrary, the way they attacked individually, one at a time, made them extraordinarily convenient training partners. However, it didn’t always go so well…
“You’re too far out, Elias.”
“This is nothing!”
Elias charged, slashing with his fairy longsword, Crystal Stream. The fierce torrent canceled out the Dragon Breath, but Elias himself had taken significant damage.
“Whoa, support Eli-Eli!”
“Yes, Master. Reactive Heal, Sacred Wall.”
Coppélia, who was in her work clothes—her steel maid outfit—swung her enormous traveler’s trunk around, casting a recovery spell. A chartreuse light and a pale-pink barrier blocked the flames, simultaneously healing Elias’s wounds.
“And-a-boooom!”
Kanami, who’d issued the order, jumped straight up, slamming a vertical kick into the lower jaw of the dragon, who was above her head. A flame-like effect that was unique to the warrior classes shone, fanning aggro.
However, this sequence of events really had been Elias’s blunder.
The key to combat lay in the division of labor. Elias was an Ancient with a level of 100, but by nature, he was an attacker and buffer. He wasn’t a tank, built to gather monster aggro and concentrate attacks on himself. Maybe it was all right for him to be on the front line, but he wasn’t supposed to take damage head-on.
This was less because there was a risk to his life than because the monster’s aim would lose its focus, disturbing their teamwork.
Is Elias losing his cool? Leonardo thought.
Nobody could have said Leonardo was especially good at getting along with people, so he couldn’t declare it with any confidence, but Elias had been strange lately. Particularly in combat, he seemed to put himself too far out. In the first place, although he was a swordsman, his water attacks were midrange and meant for suppression. Even considered in combination with powerful support abilities, he was a midfield mobile fighter; there was no need for him to be on the front line, and actually, having him there increased the risk for the whole party.
Of course Elias had a variety of attack methods, some of them single, short-range attacks, so he wasn’t saying he shouldn’t run up to the front line, period. However, even so, it seemed to Leonardo that they were lacking their former balance.
“Rrraaaaaaaaagh! Fairy Sword: Ice Burial Array!”
With a roar that seemed fit to burst his throat, countless ice stakes rose from Elias’s great sword, then flew at the fiery dragon. Kanami’s attack had thrown the dragon completely off-balance.
That one attack tipped the situation. Or, rather, it would have been a finishing blow…if Elias hadn’t been the one to strike it.
Leonardo charged in, hugging the ground, then slashed upward from that unnatural position with his blade.
Deadly Dance: He’d polished this technique so much that it formed the core of his battles, and it had evolved even further over the course of their journey. He’d ingrained the technique’s elaborate structure into himself through repetitive practice, and he’d used it to bury Rasfia, the Genius of Necromancy, but that had been the beginning, not the end. On the contrary, at that stage, Deadly Dance had been a hand-to-hand technique loaded with restrictions, one that required him to perform set motions in a set order.
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